Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Who will wear the pants in this family?

Coyote snapped this one

I HATE pants shopping. Not only are you standing 6 inches from a mirror and analyzing your ass, they no longer make pants that fit.
My body hasn't changed that drastically since hosting babies that something as basic as pants shouldn't fit anymore. My hinney has dropped to an average setting, which is fine by me. It always rode too high, like a hunched back. In fact, I like my post babies body way more than the one of my youth. So it pisses me off that no one can make pants for it.

With last year's style (maybe that was four years ago), I have to wear a belt because they end at the widest part and can't stay up. I can pull the pants up for a lovely set of camel toes and belt them there. Or I can cinch them on my hips where the belt digs into my bones and gets chucked out the car window an hour later. Now they come out with "skinny" jeans. You could put Ichabod Crane into a pair and even he'd look like Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb (check out those modern references! Yeah, I'm name-dropping) trying to cram themselves into a single pantleg. These are the stupidest looking pants ever. I tried a purple pair, and craved a platter of baba ganoush. I tried "shape holding" jeans that informed my body just where some designer wanted to remold my ass. I tried on "boyfriend" jeans. Apparently I'm dating someone from the fifties who is a foot and a half shorter than me. Maybe YOUR boyfriend wears those, meanwhile I'm thanking god I'm off the market.

I've got a pretty severe hip to waist ratio and I've always darted my pants. But every year it gets worse in the women's department. At the size that fits over my ass, I could fit triplets in the waistline: an un-dartable chasm. I have an bodaciously feminine build in the bottom, so how could it be that men's pants are the only one's that fit? What is the world coming to? Is it the End Times or What?

I was ready for something new, but something new is not ready for me. I finally marched into the old stand-by: Macy's Men's Levi's.

Mom (from who I inherited my bodacity) out for an early
ski while I model my milking/barn outfit: Land's End coat from
12 years ago. Huck's Carhart cover alls and a Goodwill hat
that falls over my eyes all the time.

I spit nails when I first went shopping with Huck for work shirts. THREE sizes PER SHIRT! The first time Huck went shopping with me, he was all: Where are the sizes? Right there, honey. You mean, that's it? S, M and L? Don't you guys all have different sizes of breasts and shoulders and torsos? Yes, we do. That's why I don't buy clothes. That's why you have to come along and hold my hand. That's why I hate the universe. And he asks: Why? I don't honestly know, but after all the conversations this shopping trip through Hades has spawned, I can't imagine who IS happy with their pants.

In the Levi's, I met the worst "sales" "ladies" ever. At the other stores, the women knew they had to help me and help me they tried. But here, they were all about deterents. "Who you shopping for?" "Me." "Are you sure you don't want to check out the women's section?" "I can't find pants that fit in the women's department." And they both snarled in stereo and one growled, "I can't see what the problem is. You're thin enough." As if I'm the one with the body dysmorphic disorder and not the entire clothing design industry. Where to begin? I don't see how she could tell, I was wearing my old Levi's which are all baggy, topped with a huge winter coat. And Don't EVER comment about other people's bodies, and certainly not while hissing. And finally, the problem is not with my body, the problem is with the design. My body isn't runway or airbrush ready, and I've got my insecurities just like everyone, but over-all it's fine for what I need to do with it which can be summed up in two words: NOT MODELING. No, I'm very clear that the problem is with the pants, not me.

Some jeans that don't feel good and fall off

The Levi's fit great. Unfortunately, they're the exact same ones I had last time, just in the Gluten-free size. I guess I'll just continue to look like an early 90's dyke, if that's what the fashion industry wants, I don't mind. It's too bad I can't do with pants what I've done with bras; since they can't seem to make one's that fit and look sweet, I'm just not wearing them (due to staring experiences, policy now excludes all non-vest-wearing moments in public).

About Me

Redefined by brain injury, I am constantly surprised by this new person I seem to be in this new life I never expected. Chronicled here are the curiosities encountered on the back roads of life. This blog is an open and honest exploration of a smallish life at a slowish pace.